


Flame to the Moth

by Gileonnen



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bloodplay, F/F, Fell Forests, Light and shadow, PWP, Vampiric Longings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 16:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16391345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: The nighttime wood is Aredhel's domain, and nothing in it can frighten her--least of all Thuringwethil.





	Flame to the Moth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



By moonlight, the wood of Nan Elmoth has a white bone beauty that Aredhel loves. Tilion's light catches on every star-white flower and flashes silver from every snowy owl's wings; it picks out the long white mushroom stems spilling from rotting stumps, and it shines dully on ledges of fungus ringing dark, gnarled trees. In the boughs above Aredhel's head, cobwebs stretch in gossamer canopies.

She ghosts between those trees, and her feet make no sound on the rich, dark moss that carpets the forest floor. She goes clad in gleaming raiment, with white-fletched arrows at her side and a horn bow at her back. Shy roe deer sight her from afar and flee, their hindquarters flashing as they spring away; wolves regard her with golden eyes and slink into the bracken. Aredhel smiles and lets them go.

The nighttime wood is her domain, now, and nothing in it can frighten her.

She picks her way up a long-dry streambed, tracing its path up from the low, wooded hills to the steeper slopes above. Here, the wind catches at her braids and sighs through rocky crevices, but she pays it little heed. Her keen ears are pricked for the faint, unmistakable whisper of leathery wings.

When the mountain face grows sheer, she climbs. Long ago, when this game was new and her heart still trembled at the thrill of it, her seeking hands had traced every stone of the cliff wall, and dread and joy alike sang through her bones. Tonight, her fingers and toes find sure, familiar holds on the stone.

Still, her blood sings, and she cannot--will not--quiet it.

At last, she drags herself over a ledge. Before her gapes a cavern mouth, and beyond it, a darkness that neither moon nor sun have ever touched; perhaps not even the light of Laurelin has ever breached those deep shadows.

In that darkness, eyes open. They gleam with their own inner fire, as though they have glimpsed the light of the trees--but the light in them is the deep, baleful red of molten rock. "You kept me waiting," murmurs Thuringwethil, slowly lowering herself from the cavern roof and stepping into the moonlight.

Aredhel's skin prickles at the hunger in that voice. Something ancient in her remembers when creatures like this prowled the shadows beyond Aman's shores--before the moon, before the trees, before there was a word for darkness. Thuringwethil would devour Aredhel utterly if she could, until not even the burning spirit of the Ñoldor remained. "I come when I please," Aredhel answers firmly.

Thuringwethil's laugh is the low, rustling whisper of autumn leaves. "So you say. But you come all the same." She casts aside her leathern mantle; Aredhel hears its iron claws scrape the stone. Beneath her cloak, Thuringwethil wears nothing at all. She is sharp and glorious as a blade, and Aredhel can scarcely breathe for wanting.

"Then please me," says Aredhel, and she bares her throat.

Tonight, Thuringwethil descends slow as fog over the hills of Dorthonion. She bends to lay a kiss beneath Aredhel's ear, near where her pulse flutters beneath her skin. Aredhel growls and presses into those lips until she can feel the sharp edge of teeth beneath them. She longs to bleed, to feel her fierce spirit welling in every eager vein; she longs to be drained by some primordial hunger and yet never to be spent.

She wants to be taken hard and fast and filthy on the rough stone, and these searching kisses will drive her mad.

With a noise of frustration, Aredhel turns her head to bite and lick at Thuringwethil's neck. Her skin tastes of ash, but Aredhel has come to crave that taste. "Please," she says against the hollow at her collar, the hard angle of her jaw; Thuringwethil's cold skin quickens with warmth wherever Aredhel's kisses fall. "Don't deny me--"

"I won't deny you," Thuringwethil laughs that mothwing laugh. She lights her fingers along Aredhel's cheek, and her claws trace icy lines down to Aredhel's jaw. "Have patience."

"My people crossed the Helcaraxë. I've done with patience." Aredhel pulls away only long enough to drop her weapons and begin unlacing her clothing. It falls in a shining, inglorious heap beside Thuringwethil's cloak, as white as the leather is dark. Nude, she presses herself full-length against Thuringwethil's cold body and kisses between her breasts. The shock of contact aches keenly, deep in Aredhel's bones, but it's worth it to hear Thuringwethil hiss and to feel her shudder in her arms.

"I want your teeth," says Aredhel, turning and wrapping Thuringwethil's long arms around her. Remorseless nails score her breasts, her ribs, her thighs, and every cut kindles her with new pleasure until she thinks she must come or come apart. The scent of blood rises on the cool night air. She can feel it running down her chest in thin, hot rivulets. "I've waited so long for you--"

"Soon, we'll have eons of darkness to share. Would you like that, sweet Aredhel?" Thuringwethil's fingertips slide between her legs, steady and sure, and Aredhel's every nerve sings with pleasure. "I'll make you a cloak of owls' wings, and we'll seek out every shadowed, hidden place--we'll fuck in every dark cave and forest--"

"Please," Aredhel groans, and this time, Thuringwethil does not deny her. Her long teeth graze over Aredhel's neck, then sink in and _tear_.

And then there is darkness, so deep and profound that it swallows her. She sinks into it like a blade into quenching oil, and the heat bleeds out of her in slow, glorious waves. Her heart speeds, at first, then begins to slow, and a lassitude like release steals over her. Each heartbeat sends a throb of pleasure through her quim--and deeper, and deeper, until her world becomes a single point of aching light. And with every pulse, Thuringwethil's tongue probes the raw, ragged edges of Aredhel's wound and laps her clean.

She shudders apart in Thuringwethil's arms, thighs clenching on her long-fingered hand.

While the moon wheels across the sky, they fuck on the mountainside, until Thuringwethil's skin is hot to the touch and Aredhel's is dewed with sweat and blood. But as Arien's first light begins to crest the horizon, Thuringwethil rises and puts on her cloak. "When the seasons turn again, I'll be waiting," she says.

Aredhel looks up at her, silhouetted against the pearl-grey light of sunrise, and her heart twists at the prospect of waiting. She always forgets, in the long months between trysts, how beautiful Thuringwethil is--as fair and fell as the night itself. "Perhaps I'll find you first."

Thuringwethil gives that low, rustling laugh and lays a kiss on the torn flesh at Aredhel's throat. "If you do, Ar-Feiniel, I'll have a cloak of owls' wings for you."

Then she leaps from the cliff's edge and wings away, to become part of a greater darkness.


End file.
